A passage to Kerala - a trip in heaven

The next day we woke up at 5'O clock in the morning and got ready to the most awaited place Munnar. We had to catch the first bus which starts from the Ernakulam bus station at sharp 6'O clock. We checked out our room paid the balances in the hotel Excellency in Ernakulam. We hired an auto riksaw for Rs. 25/- to reach bus station. The auto driver helped us in showing the parking place for Munnar. As and when we reached the bus station, the bus to Munnar was parked in its place. The bus, god it doesn't even look like a city bus of other cities of other states. The bus model was looking like as if it was made in 80's. But have to mention that travel was very good.

However the bus started at 6'O clock sharp towards the Madurai (Tamilnadu) highway. The journey was about 4:30 hrs. As the bus was an express bus it stopped only at bus stations of main places. As we started early in the morning though they are sunny days, we were able to flee from hot weather. After 3 hrs of our journey we have reached a place(probably a village) called Kotha mangalam. The bus was stopped for a while, and for our surprise everybody from bus got down, including conductor and driver of the bus. We've asked some one standing near to the bus, whether we've reached Munnar or not, he just signaled us to see the board having text 'Kotha mangalam' in English and he passed. Then after some time a boy looking like a student entered the bus, I've asked him about the condition. He told us, "all are having their break fast at canteen which is there beside this bus". Then we remembered that we didn't have any thing since that morning. More over he explained that, that was the last bus stop on plain road, because after that bust would start climbing the western ghats. We thought we would have something before everybody come back, but we were late.

The bus was started and we traveled for one hour through jungles(forests) of western ghats. The bus was stopped again at another place called Adimaly, a village. The bus journey on mountains and through the forests was awesome. Finally after 5 hrs journey around 11'O clock we were at Munnar. The entrance to Munnar made us to feel like children. Tea estates hosted us with pleasant weather and cool breezes. As we were planned for the stay, we called 'Spice garden resort' and asked for the guidance to reach the hotel. They suggested us to hire an auto. We traveled back 8 km in the same route in which we came by bus. For our surprise the resort was at the corner of a hillstep*. We found that the resort was not suitable for couple to stay and came back to the bus stop in the same auto. Mean while I've called other restaurants, only one of them had the room available. 'Poopada' hotel and restaurant which was very near(walkable) to the bus station. The room was good. Immediately after jumping into the room, we got freshed. And came down to the restaurant had some food. Then we wanted to take some rest as we have traveled for 5 hrs and were disturbed because of disappointment given by the spice garden resort. But after finishing our lunch, we were suggested some visiting place packages by the manager of the hotel. Having got interested in visiting places we discussed about the plans. Following image contains the list of places on the brochure given by Poopada.

Basically there are places to visit in 4 directions. Cochin(same way back we came to Munnar), Mattupetty, Thekkady and Coimbattore directions. Each direction have 5 to 6 visiting places and each direction would take 4 - 7 hrs and they also said that each direction would cost us Rs. 1000/- for taxi. As the day was done half, we had to choose any one direction which we can cover in half day. So, we have asked for suggestion to the manager. He suggested us to take the Mattupetty direction. In which we can cover flower garden, Mattupetty dam, Speed boating(if possible as it will be open till 4:30PM), Echo point(18 kms). We said ok for it and started our trip in an indica.

We have really enjoyed the flower park. It looks very beautiful, especially for the recently married couple. One can feel the breezes passing from different size, colored roses, different kind of jasmines.

In this park one can buy the plants, if they want. As we have further destinations to reach we didn't buy any. There is an entry ticket of Rs5/- per person and Rs20/- per camera.

After this we headed towards Mattupetty dam. While we were going, we have seen so many vans, mini buses returning as if they were being chased by some one. The buses and vans were looking like crashed, some of them were looking even worst. We have asked our driver to enquire about the reason for the damages. He asked one of the bus drivers, came back to us and dropped an atomic bomb on us.

The reason he told was, “there is a wild elephant eating grass at the echo point(which was our last destination in the list we have selected) some people threw stones on it. It got anger and grinded the cars, buses, vans around it”. We were shocked and scared, though our driver was driving in the same route to the Mattupetty dam, giving us some confidence and telling us about his past experiences.

We reached the dam spot. The driver told us to enjoy the walk on bridge. While walking on the dam we thought “yes, he is right”. The reservoir was beautiful, though it is a small and short dam (Every human giggles with excitment when he sees beauty of heavy water flowing nearby and he is in a very safe possition). There we have taken some pics by requesting other touristers. After crossing the dam, cab was waiting for us. Again we had a threatening shouts coming from the touristers returning from the echo point. But our dasring and dashing hero was driving ahead for the echo point.

Finally we reached the echo point. There we were able to see the parts(like window glasses, some iron parts of the body) of busses, cars, some mini vans crushed and damaged. But no signs of elephant. The location was like a lake and the other bank having some pine trees. As the name indicate the echo of the voice was giving pleasure and was pulling us towards childhood to shout with crazy noises. We shouted some heys and hooos and started for returning for the hotel room as it was getting dark by 5 in the evening in the mid of summer. After 30 minutes we were at hotel, had face washed and passed the time for an hour then went down to eat something. As they do not have much in veg to eat, had some roti's with paneer butter masala and went to bed so early.

A passage to Kerala - Our first destination

After getting married, had no time to spend at leisure. So, was waiting for a long holidays from office. Some other circumstances made me take the decision of resigning the office I was working for. I've got another job, that still had 18 days to join. So have got great time to spend, but shall we spend these days at the same house where we see the acquainted faces? Were given an idea by brother to go to any other places like Kerala or Kulu, gave a good thought about it and chose to travel. Started planning the routes to travel using google maps, and googling about hotels to stay, found a big list of hotels for each place in the route we planned.

Above image is the route map for our tour. Our first destination in Kerala is Ernakulam, from there to Munnar -> thekkady -> Alapuzzha -> Trivandrum -> Kanyakumari -> Trivandrum. From Trivandrum is our return journey to  hometown.

All reservations are done according to plan. Our train was at 5:30 in the evening from our hometown to Ernakulam. We've taken our reserved berths. The journey to our first destination in Kerala was about 20hrs, so expected time to reach the destination was next day afternoon 1:30. In our journey next day morning when we got freshened, we found that we just crossed Tamilnadu and entered Kerala. The first junction we reached in Kerala was Palakkad. Suddenly after Palakkad junction the whether changed with very cool breeze and bright looking nature. At some places we saw some peacocks resting under trees. We had some good company through our journey, who were residents of both Andhra and Kerala, they guided and suggested for many places in Kerala to visit.

As expected the train was delayed for 1hr in reaching our first destination, Ernakulam town. As nothing was planned except the main cities we had to travel and staying there, we hired a taxi for Rs.200/- to reach the hotel excellency (www.hotelexcellency.com)where we booked room already. Payed an advance of Rs.1000/- for an A.C.  double room and moved to the room. As the time was about 3:10PM after having some bath, we hardly could find some real food for lunch, we ordered some snacks to just fill our stomachs partly. As we didn't plan any thing to see at ernakulam(present Kochi), After having break for 1 hr at 5:30 we approached the travel desk present in the same hotel. "Except beach there is nothing to see at this time" was the answer we got from the travel desk guys, we took his card for any further assistance. After being guided towards the route to the beach by some waiter of the hotel, we hired an auto to go to beach. To our surprise auto wallah was an educated man, he spoke english very well, he guided us to some places that were passing along the way we were going. 

Finally we reached marine ride on the beach. We directly went to a steamer which was being filled, a person from the steamer signaled us to come and sit in the boat there is no ticket u can directly give the money to the collector. Later the boat started, infact it was our(after getting married) first journey on a boat and first time for both of us to see the Arabian see.

Our first pic of the Arabian see.

The steamer travels through harbor in Kochi and returns to the starting point, Surprisingly we clicked many photos in different lightings in the dawn time.

You can see all our tour photos in the following URL : link to our tour pics

After marine ride we walked on the bank street which had very well developed shopping malls. We had our food at some place which was looking like Mc. D but it was not. We had some chole bathura and some thing else. Then we moved to our room again by an auto rickshaw. There we inquired about travelling options available for Munnar. We have only two options, one was the bus early in the morning at 6:00 AM and the second one was to take a taxi which would be a little expensive. We went to our room and took rest for the night. Early morning we'd have to get up and get ready and leave to Munnar by Bus.